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10/25/2009By Marlene Buffa
October 24, 2009
No matter what your religious or spiritual beliefs, the irony of a divine birth in the middle of the winter of earthly death inspires faith. Harvest complete, farming dormant, our earthly cycle of seed-to-life lays at rest in the winter months. Instead, the birth of a heavenly idea springs forth each year in the midst of a barren blanket of cold and dark, and our faith in the world renews itself. Death of earthly life – whether animal or vegetable or human – merely represents greater spiritual cycles. The symbols of true power lie not in the longest lifespan or fertile soils, but in the resilient spirit within each of us to perceive and experience an awakening of greater good amidst our darkest days.
Plant new seeds
After the harvests each year, the cycle of sustenance begins anew. A waiting period for the planting season provides the opportunity for us to reflect on the harvest and plant the seeds of food we prefer and need to sustain us. Freely and deliberately, we plot out rows of seeds, carefully balancing between various edible families of food to ensure our crops provide variety and succulent nutrition. Measuring distance between the seeds, our sowing allows for growth and development of the plants so they thrive when the time is right. We tend the garden with nourishing water and fertilize the soil to provide the opportunity for an abundant harvest. Then, we wait for our effort to sprout and grow.
In our Spiritual gardens, we must also take great care to plant only the seeds of thought and desire that will result in our greatest crop of abundance in the future we choose to create. We must consciously align the rows of beliefs and intention, and allow room for what we truly want in life to blossom and grow to the fullest potential. We tend the garden of our faith with careful reaffirmation of positive thoughts and appreciation, knowing that the seeds of our prayers will flourish under the loving attention of our spiritual work. And then, we rest while the Infinite grows all the components into place.
Harvest your greater good
The Winter Solstice signified regrouping and giving thanks for food for the winter. In colder climates, the solstice marked the beginning of the starvation months of January through April, and a celebration including feasts, slaughtering animals for food and storing crops strengthened chances of survival. People stored wine, food, grain and more to sustain them in the harsh months.
Like the agrarian society of centuries past, our Spiritual farmers use the Christmas season to regroup and give thanks. We face the New Year soon after the solstice, and with it comes the uncertainty of survival of new ideas and experiences. Under the shining star of wisdom, we give birth to new possibilities and ways of thinking and soon after, we leave our past behind and dare to use the resources of our soul we stashed away for the cold days of our life’s work. We celebrate the end of one way of life in the present year, and move forward, sometimes reluctantly, into new beginnings knowing no matter how intensely we dig our heels into the old calendar and our old ways, time progresses and we must move with it. While we build upon on our past collection of beliefs and practices, we find when we harvest our greater good, it appears differently than before. Transformed by time and aging, our spiritual good fermented like fine wine into greater blessings than we imagined. Like good stewards of the crops of our life work, we bless the ideas healthy for us, and discard any notions diseased with the mould of self-doubt and negativity.
Give thanks for bountiful cycles
From Christmas to Easter, to Summer and Fall, we recognize and enjoy the life cycles of time and earth’s gifts. Similarly, we must remember to appreciate the cyclic nature of our awareness as it shifts naturally with maturity and responds to life experience. At every turn, gratefulness enhances our lives and enriches the soil of our contented hearts.
At Christmas, we reflect upon what we grew this past year through the garden of relationships, for the crop of consciousness serves as building blocks for the coming year. When we reserve enough good in the storehouse of your soul, life finds a way to sustain us through difficulties and challenges. Death of old dusty attitudes and ideas offers us the opportunity to sweep away what no longer serves us and clears the path for new information and enlightenment. In the center of the clearing, lies the opportunity for a rebirth of Spirit, moving us ever forward toward an abundant future.
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Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. . A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com.
By Marlene Buffa
October 20, 2009
My mother-in-law sat on the beach in Aruba and reached for her cold beverage nestled in the sand by her chair. She miscalculated her grasp and instead, her hand dove into the sand and she pulled out a glorious 14K solid gold rope necklace. Teams of salvage hunters spend millions of dollars, countless years and untold hours searching for lost treasure, more often finding it elusive. How is it then, some people find treasure when not seeking it, and others hunt and never find anything even when using elaborate calculations? The dichotomy of old sayings, “It’ll show up when you least expect it,” versus “Persistence pays,” provides Spirit an opportunity to intrigue us in our journey and increase the value of things we desire but cannot yet manifest.
Hidden vs. missing
When something is missing, it means it once existed in our life and its no longer there. When something is hidden, that means its still there, but we can no longer see it. In life, how do we distinguish between the two qualities of perceived lack? In both instances, we experience a void – we can’t touch or feel what we want. From misplaced car keys to hidden clues, we struggle with filling the void with what we already know – that which once existed – instead of moving towards something better.
The qualities of things hidden range from stifled emotions to disguised authenticity and integrity, to secrets about ourselves we don’t want the world to see. Missing things usually represent what we need to learn. If life repeats the lesson over and over for us, then we clearly missed the point of the lesson. Missing means a gap, a space, an emptiness for something which once served as a part of us, or for something we need to learn to complete the circle.
Hidden Meanings
Buried deep between the lines of written or spoken words, we get a glimpse of interpretation that our life experiences brought to our present moments. We attach many translations to subtle nuances that stem from our belief about who we are and what we need to discover. Forgetting to surrender to the Infinite and let go of judgment, we ascribe a meaning often all-too familiar with our repeated patterns instead of allowing new ideas and opportunities for growth to emerge.
The true meaning of any dusky perceptions lies not within our immediate accumulation of experience to shine the light on the unknown. Instead, our piercing beam of insight and willingness to progress forward emerges as authentic understanding in all of life’s foggy depths of confusion. No mystical forces at work, simply accepting situations and circumstances at face value, without prejudice brings about the highest interpretations possible.
Hidden Blessings
The saying, “Be careful what you ask for, for you shall surely get it,” cautions loudly in our minds when we dare to ask for something others deem as greedy or ill-guided. While Spirit focuses equally on our declarations of what we do and do not want in our lives, it also understands that a lesson presents more profound if the prayer goes unanswered.
Many times we look back at our requests of God and wonder why they never materialized. Later, after life unfolds, we realize if our exact petitions appeared, things would turn out much differently than we intended and we rationalize that the unanswered prayer represented a hidden blessing. In situations which on the surface appear negative, we find precious rewards in the little blessings carefully protecting us from what we believed we wanted.
What are you hiding?
Inside each of us, burn the embers of understanding and coals of smoldering wisdom. With humility, many of us deny the truth about these gifts from life and bury our talents beneath our smoky exterior. We mistakenly think that if we disguise our true selves, we hide our strengths and weaknesses from the world thereby protecting ourselves from the harm of exposure. Additionally, we grow to expect the worst from the revelation of who we are, instead of allowing the possibility that more good enter our lives if we simply take the risk.
Spirit invites us to reveal the treasure of our authentic selves and uncover greatness! Day by day, we are shown scenarios that portray greater abundance and prosperity if we only took the risk of digging up and displaying the hidden treasures of our glorious self to the world. When we clutch tightly to a gold coin, it never transforms. It’s stuck as a gold coin. If we open our hand and use it to bring more good into our lives, then all are enhanced by the transaction.
Today, take a moment to consider the elements hidden or missing in your life. Fill in the gaps with whatever you need to feel complete with Life and search for those parts of yourself that you scurried away out of your present awareness. When you look for hidden meanings, be prepared for answered and unanswered prayers to equally educate you in that lesson and others. Frequently lessons overlap and the jewels we glean from one learning experience blend perfectly with others. Remember the most precious treasure of all already lives within you. If you willingly identify and acknowledge your self-worth, the treasure chest of life awaits you!
Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. . A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com.
By Marlene Buffa
September 19, 2009
Halloween brings to light our memories and our apprehensions and enlivens our imagination. Each year we honestly portray ourselves as something other than who we are, and venture out into the night fearlessly asking for what we want from strangers and friends. The chant, “Trick or Treat!” resounds on neighborhood streets, with a telltale confidence that our abundant rewards, sweet and freely given, fill the largest container we dare to hold. Life, too, offers us the opportunity to boldly request our desires from others as well as the Universe. Just as our expectations of creepy “things that go bump in the night” sometimes come to fruition at Halloween, other evidence of things outside of ourselves interjecting with our humanity, finds its way into our daily experience.
Knock Knock
More than just a childhood formulaic riddle, spirit knocking on the door of our consciousness forces us to awaken to new possibilities. My friend Ann’s condo, replete with sounds and noises from unearthly visitors, resonates with a loud knock, or rap on her wooden front door. The wooden door is closed and behind a locked metal security door so no one can make contact with the wood, yet the sounds echo throughout her living room – loud enough that her neighbors hear it, too! Ann gave up going to the door to see her anxious caller because after dozens of times, she found no one there.
Spirit knocks on our door, too. Many times Spirit is there asking for an invitation to enter our lives, yet finds us not home to answer. Over and over, we hear the call to a greater life, and either ignore it or find we cannot face the greatness it offers. We must prepare ourselves equally to knock on the door of opportunity and to answer the call when opportunity beckons us. Take the initiative to dare for a great life and you may just receive a “treat!” you weren’t expecting!
Bump
From fender benders, to bumper cars, we often equate a bump with a collision in transportation. We’ve all heard the “bumps in the night” which startle us from sleep yet we dismiss such noises as the house settling or our pets rousting about. Bumping into unseen forces, we sometimes feel a hovering entity or looming feeling surrounding us, daring to collide with our circumventing comfort zone. With our bodies as vehicles transporting us on the planet, collisions occur naturally with others and with Spirit around us.
Nothing to fear, these gentle bumps into our beingness serve to remind us and alert us of the awakened world in which we roam. Like the bumper in a pinball machine, Life stands there, solid and immovable, waiting for us to bump into it. We dart off in a different direction, most times not due to any epiphany of understanding, rather from the shock of the bump itself – the bump we created.
When Life or Spirit bumps into us, it renders a touching reminder for us to awaken to the events and emotions around us while we make our way on the planet. From the premonitory diversion to avoid an accident, to the gentle nudge into something better, Life reminds us of the power of the Infinite as a gentle teacher.
Whoosh!
The older we grow, the quicker time passes. Our perception and vantage point change as time reflects against the accumulation of our experience. Time, as we interpret it through man-made dials and clocks, remains constant and some say, circular or infinite. Unseen thoughts, entities and even energies wrap around us, check us out, and whisk away – in an instant. The indescribable feeling of déjà vu, or the instinctive choices we make, represents our higher selves responding to Life.
When life streaks by us in our unaware state of the daily banal, we waste precious time in the coma of disengagement. Awaken from the sleep of drudgery and live the life you want to live! Too often we “wake up” and we find our children getting married – wondering where did their childhood go? Could twenty years pass without your conscious awareness of it? Worse yet – did those years whoosh by without our enjoyment and fulfillment of precious moments?
Halloween reminds us to step outside of our normal persona to experience something new. With the eerie knocks, bumps and whooshes, we attract that which we fear but know is real. It’s easy to blame playful ghosts for the pranks they often wield on us, when our true fears lie within us – and we’re too afraid to face them. As nurturer of our spirits and benevolent guide, Life knocks on the door of our consciousness offering us a deeper existence, bumps into us and diverts us onto a higher path and whooshes by us reminding us it’s never too late to wake up!
Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. . A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com.
6/21/2009
June 2, 2009
Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Viktor Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning
As our nation moves into its 233rd year of independence from Great Britain, we find ourselves, in many ways, more enslaved than ever before. Exterior forces such as more government regulation and requirements, an adherence to a world standard which, by its own accord negates our Declaration of Independence, and most importantly the abdication of our own inner personal freedoms carve a path of confinement rather than liberty.
More and more, we self-impose limitations on our worth, our value, our integrity. We believe what we see around us and assume the illusion is real. We do daily battle with the very spirit inside us and shackle our potential in chains of obligation and expectations. Worst of all, we imprison our creativity by denying ourselves freedom of possibility and fantastic possibility. As we notice these precious freedoms falling prey to our thoughts and fears, we understand the importance of the freedom of our minds.
Freedom of Attitude
As Frankl pointed out in his masterpiece, Man’s Search for Meaning, the one true freedom remains the ability to choose one’s attitude in any given situation. Many present-day spiritual leaders remind us of our choice of perspective and stress the importance our outlook holds over the outcome of many day-to-day decisions and behaviors. Mother Theresa taught us to “see God” in every person we meet. When we shift our attitudes, and hence our automatic observations, from seeing problems to finding the good and God in everyone and everything we encounter, we reach levels of happiness and positive energy which bring us peace of mind.
Freedom of Potential
As a young girl, my parents blessed me with their encouragement and matter-of-fact approach to my achievements. Never doubtful of my capabilities, they sought out new things for me to try, new books to read and new ideas to consider. While taking Cello lessons didn’t result in anything more than an exploration in string instruments, my parents allowed me to express my potential. As we grow older we rely on ourselves to break free from the limitations of self-doubt and entertain the full symphony of our own potential. No one can express your potential but you! Your vision, your drive, your confidence work in concert with your spirit to express the crescendo of your abilities in harmonious orchestration by living a life worthy of all your talents. You are the conductor holding the baton of purpose and directing your life.
Freedom to grow
An adolescent told me once that his pet alligator would never outgrow the fish tank he called home. He said that alligators only grow to the size of their container. While I don’t know if this holds true or not, it presents an interesting spiritual consideration. When you examine the expanse of the container of your spirit, you gauge your ability to change and grow from the allowance of space permitted yourself. If you limit your spiritual environment to a small community of like minded individuals, this may feed your soul, but leave you hungry for the nutrients only bountiful gardens can provide. When you sow the seeds of possibility and hunger for more knowledge, information and wisdom, you expand the harvest of your life to include a wide variety of endeavors and experiences.
Freedom to love
So often, we consider ourselves unworthy of love. In humble self-deprecation, we hear ourselves deny our lovability, or become embarrassed when someone acknowledges how much we mean to them. As Gerald Jampolsky pointed out, “Love is the total absence of fear.” When we live in fear, we live not only outside of love, but inside the confines of stagnation. In giving ourselves the freedom to love – to give, to receive, and truly accept love – we fill our lives with the warmth that only sincere expressions of emotion bring.
Louise Hay teaches us that we are the only thinker in our minds. You alone are responsible for your thoughts – whether they empower you or destroy your spirit. The freedom of your mind knows no boundary but what you draw around you. When we use the power of attitude to view life in a more positive way, we find we free ourselves from the doubt of our potential; we allow ourselves to continue to learn and grown in magnificent ways and to experience love to our fullest and best imagination!
Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. . A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com.
By Marlene Buffa
A Boulangerie is a bakery which sells breads and rolls.
A pâtisserie is a French bakery that specializes in pastries and sweets.
My friend Ann and I walk two miles to the nearby gourmet grocery store. Contained within the store, resides a most decadent Boulangerie. The bakery also sells pastries and sweets, making it a Patisserie as well. One day, we decided to satisfy our craving for sweets, so Ann ordered a large cinnamon roll. The clerk asked, “Would you like that heated and covered in butter?” Ann and I both looked at one another and in unison responded, “Of course! Isn’t everything better heated and covered in butter?” Laughing at the excessive indulgence, I realized that we taste life as plain little necessities, instead of indulging in everyday experiences more warmly and engulfed in goodness!
The Store of Life
While a Boulangerie makes the basics of life – breads and rolls – the Patisserie offers the luxuries we enjoy. All too often, we settle for the basics and deny ourselves the wonder of the possibilities of the flavors life offers us. Sure, the staple of grains supports and nourishes us, and the sweet treats satisfy our fancy for more than we need, from time to time.
When we look at our lives, most of us remain content with our basic necessities and offer gratitude and thanks for our health – physical, emotional and spiritual. Sometimes we take our basics for granted and life serves up a plateful of lessons to remind us to appreciate our daily bread.
Enjoying and even indulging in the sweet treasures that life offers us whether in food, relationships, success, or peace of mind, we recognize that while this is available to us at all times, we rarely stop to consider that it, too, could be a regular experience.
Heated
Heat excites molecules, inspires passion and creates pressure, too. When we heat up the basics in life, they come to us more satisfying. There is nothing so bland as cold or frozen bread, just as the affects of distant or detached relationships provide no nutrition for the growth of our soul. Deliberately walking up to the storefront of life and ordering mediocrity speaks volumes to the universe about our sense of self worth and willingness to settle for whatever life dishes out. Resigning oneself to the reasonable and acceptable, is like slipping on an oven mitt to protect us from either the danger of a heated moment or the pleasure of the warmth of life. We stand to gain a lot by removing the gloves of complacency and basking in excitement and satisfaction in our daily lives! So, heat it up!
Covered in Butter
Butter. Long touted as bad for our arteries, our heart and countless other medical treacheries, creamy butter provides a natural dollop of delight on our ordinary blue plate specials. Whether coating fresh corn on the cob or adorning a sweet roll, we associate butter with the ultimate in simple pleasures. Although modern manufacture attempted to replicate the taste and texture of real butter, nothing replaces the delightful dairy product.
As kids we’d ask for ice cream with “whipped cream and a cherry on top.” Somehow this request grew from a possibility to an expectation when served up in a favorite soda shop. As adults, we request our experiences as gentle guides, hoping to survive and muddle through the day. If we dared to ask Spirit to serve us situations with the opportunity to be engulfed by natural delights, our expectations would heighten and we’d soon evolve to request the best at all times.
Just the way we like it
When we express gratitude for our basics in life, we appreciate the sweet indulgences we enjoy from time to time. Whether stepping into a Boulangerie or Patisserie, we place our order with the Infinite for exactly what we want – what we think we deserve. As we mature spiritually, we move from the mere bare necessities of life, to daring our indulgence in something that heightens our taste for deeper experiences and a more passionate existence.
So, heat up your appetite for possibilities and slather on the highest good you can think of and take a huge bite out of life!
Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. . A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com.
By Marlene Buffa
May 17, 2009
A steam engine is a device that converts the potential energy that exists as pressure in steam, and converts that to mechanical force.
About.com
While watching the scrolling banner at the bottom of a major network newscast, I saw an intriguing misspelling. The brief synopsis discussed hurt feelings and damage to one’s “self of steam.” So often we laugh at mistakes such as this, when the real lesson lies in looking deeper into the content. Self-of-steam is closely related to self-esteem when considering that which propels us forward in life emanates from within and we provide both the mechanism and the energy to pursue our greatness as well as our foundation.
Hydration of Spirit
To create steam, a water source is required. In our lives, our spirit acts as a body of water – refreshing and replenishing us. Our spirit, like water, requires constant attention and makes up most of who we are. Without a sense of spirit, the life force within us suffers, much as our human body wanes without sufficient hydration. Since the earth is comprised of mostly water, the physical source remains abundant. Our invisible universe also consists of plentiful consciousness, or spirit. Remembering to connect with the spirit within – and the endless supply of good that nourishes us merely by acknowledging through gratitude and growth - we fill our tank of possibilities with the fuel of spirit.
The furnace
To make steam, water must be heated high enough to transform from its liquid state to gaseous state. Similarly, to make “self-of-steam” we must heat our spirit with the passion of living. Stoking the furnace of our desires and goals, we keep a constant flow of our spiritual fuel in the pipeline for our greater good. When we energize our spirit enough to propel actions and hence, dreams, we move forward in momentum toward our goals.
The movement
While moving forward stands as the optimal direction of spiritual movement, as we mature spiritually, we learn the power of choice offers insight and growth as well. The mechanical force of steam powers a steam engine to move – it doesn’t dictate direction – it simply provides the energy for the conductor to move. Our spiritual steam also gives us the life force we require to move from a standstill toward our highest and best potential, but in and of itself, does not guarantee forward momentum. As individuals, using clearly defined passion and an understanding of self and relation to the Creator and the world around us, we use our free will to determine the speed and direction of our movement towards what we truly desire.
Self-of-steam, much like self-esteem derives its power from that inner connection we cherish when we believe and know our true worth and role in life. Just as no one can bestow upon you a sense of self, neither can anyone outside of you offer you a bundle of spiritual energy or synergy with which to impel you toward your highest potential. It also stands to reason that no one can arbitrarily remove or reduce your sense of worth either! You get to decide what you want in life. Loving the self and your aspirations provides you with an untouchable and unquenchable source of energy for positive movement. Decide on the source for you steam, how much energy you require and the direction you want to go. It’s all there inside of you – cooking up a wonderful life!
Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. . A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com.
By Marlene Buffa
“Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Le Petit Prince
Rich with sensory perception, our human experience allows us to take in and assimilate the world around us. Unlike the rainbow portraying the very basics of color schematics, the real world vibrates with a truly unlimited spectrum of possibilities. Not limited to merely seven colors, we bless our eyes for bringing to us a full-color array that changes with alterations of light and perspective. Similarly, we bless our Creator for showing us precious bits of digestible life, all the while we fully comprehend that more than we observe and understand exists in our grand gourmet of choices.
Our relationships with one another bring far greater depth and complexity than the limitations of sensory observation allow. Like the grand earth and all its vibrations, those around us –ourselves included – put forth a limited range of who we are, for others to see. Now, the two elements of the human equation – what truly exists compared to what our limitations allow us to perceive, and what we put forth for others to see, vs. their ability to see it – add a doubly variable basis for establishing, forming, and maintaining relationships with one another.
Who are you, really?
Over the years, various psychological studies hypothesize we use about 10% of our total brain capacity. That, alone, astounds us by demonstrating we rarely dare to exert the other 90% of our capability. What comprises that inert 90%? Mystical, elusive and often fearful traits popularly bear the reputation of that unknown brain store. The notion of true genius rests in people demonstrating perhaps a larger percentage of brain usage. But what if genius had nothing to do with the filing cabinet of facts and figures, and more to do with connecting to spirit for intuition and understanding of that we do not see using merely the ten percent?
Additionally, we must also understand that like the limitations of the spectrum of sensory perception and the 10% of human brain usage, who we truly are as a physical being reflects a mere fraction of our true selves as a spiritual being. When we consider the wide range of non-physical experiences our soul carries forth, these bodies - or vehicles – merely experience the possibilities limited on the earth plane. As we ponder our spiritual existence, our mind stalls as the magnitude overwhelms us. Like gazing at billions of stars in countless galaxies, our limited awareness barely comprehends the full breadth of our spiritual truth.
Understanding the human limits
Like living within our means financially, we quickly learn that our human bodies constrain us in many ways. Subject to the limitations of the law of gravity, for instance, mankind overcame his avian desires by building airplanes and other modes of aviation. The myth of Daedalus and his son Icarus exemplifies failed attempts at human flight independently, at will.
Similarly, we understand the restrictions of spirit as captured into the human experience. Like seeing birds in flight and knowing that mobility is impossible for us, we get loving glimpses of spirit at work in our life, and believe that, too, eludes us. Thus far, technology sidesteps or never considers the spiritual or invisible component to our earthly experience, and therefore fails to account for the spiritual component at work in human lives each day.
Multiple ports of entry
The news media proves effective by using several modes of sensory input to convey a story. For thousands of years, the spoken word prevailed as the primary source of information from person to person, and generation to generation. Then, somewhere along the timeline, the written word emerged, lending a second component to communication. Ever since Gutenberg, the printed word reigned as the staple of information exchange. Five hundred years later (give or take), recorded audio began as Edison brought the phonograph to the general marketplace. From there, various regenerations of audio media integrated into our culture and now we enjoy personal systems, satellite television and more.
Researchers over the years learned that the impact of an intended message intensifies when the message is presented using more than one sensory receptor. That means that if you get your news on television, for example, you see it and hear it. Therefore, the news’ ability to reach you is greater, and your ability to receive and remember it, is greater, too. Add to the visual pictures, the scrolling bar along the bottom of major news channels, you engage in reading, watching pictures and colors and hearing. A triple whammy to hit your brain! As of yet, the transmission of smell, taste and touch is not possible, but when that occurs, the retention ratio will skyrocket! Think of the scratch-and-sniff ads in your favorite magazine. Why did they do that? It wasn’t effective enough to let you see and read about a perfume. Once you see, read and smell, presumably, you’re hooked!
The illusion of what we perceive.
In high school, a wise teacher once told our class, “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.” Looking back, I realize her direction not only addressed the unreliability of gossip and hearsay, or even the media for that matter, but also spoke to our interpretive abilities as limited by the human experience.
Not meaning to second guess or inspire doubt in what we believe we know for certain, let us remember keep a healthy perspective when taking in information of any sort. Spirit knows no limitation of any kind. Our higher self recognizes things on more than a physical, human level – it sees what Antoine de Saint Exupéry, says “is invisible to the eye.” The spiritual connection within us, when trusted, acknowledges what is essential – whether or not our ability to perceive it exists. When our awareness of the illusions comes to light, our ability to thrive peacefully increases along with the connection to Spirit and the Infinite.
We are human beings struggling to move forward in a world with built-in perception restrictions. We are so much more than our human limitations! Remember what is essential to you, take a deep breath and trust that your higher self senses all and shows you the truth.
Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. . A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com.
By Marlene Buffa
My father enjoyed laughing at himself. He also imparted his truisms in humorous ways, sometimes repeatedly, hoping we understood his underlying meaning. One of his silly antics included the bathroom mirror. He’d walk into the bathroom and let out a yell. “Ack!” he paused, “Phew, it’s only me. I almost scared my stuffin’ completely on the out.” The awkward sentence, followed his feigned fearful cry, led to ultimate relief that the reflection in the mirror, was really himself. Over the years, I’ve remembered Daddy’s playful idiosyncrasy, and twenty years later, it holds even greater meaning to me than one father’s joyful attempt at self-realization. When we lose sight of ourselves in our daily walk through life, its easy to forget who we are. It’s only when we stop a moment, and face our fears, that we recognize our innocent and childlike truth.
Self-fears
Our fears show up in avoidance, hesitation, and anxiety. Fear never exists outside of ourselves – its always a reaction to something we experience or create as real. Completely within us, fears captivate our imagination and stifle our progress to move forward unimpeded into our greater good. When we feed the energy of our fear, we starve our creativity, and more importantly, our spiritual freedom.
Avoidance is one of fear’s self-preservation mechanisms. We allow the object of our fear (providing fear is rational and an object to fear actually exists) to control our forward movement, resulting in stagnation of progress or circumvention of growth to steer our boat of self-realization. Often, with self-fear, we’ve peeped into the window of our potential, and witnessed a side of ourselves that frightens us. This fear then controls and holds us hostage so strongly that we never again allow that aspect of ourselves to reappear. We avoid situations that potentially bring up our weaknesses or traits, rather than deal with them directly.
Hesitation holds a basis in fear, as well. Thousands of possible “worst case scenarios” creep up at the moment we need to take the leap into our greater good. We second, third and fourth guess our motives, methods and selves until the moment to move into action passes us by, thereby relieving ourselves of making the fearful decision. Left with excuses and reasons, fear appearing as hesitation justifies our comfort in immobility, ultimately leaving us empty and confused at why life never seems to work out.
Anxiety, troublesome and risky, presents the most measurable facet of fear. Blood pressure rises, heart rate increases, cold sweats and shortness of breath give us tangible and physical results of a worthless emotion. When it gets right down to it, worry and anxiety pose no real benefit at all to your handling of a situation. In fact, not only are the health risks apparent, but the ingraining of thought patterns into your conscious and sub-conscious pose a greater long term threat. Worry never accomplished anything, and worry on steroids turns into anxiety. Rehashing situations, outcomes that have not yet occurred and pondering every possible permutation of a problem, pose no real solution to anything. Sure, anxiety keeps your mind busy, but so do many positive, loving ideas. You’ll love your life a lot more when you realize that no anxiety should keep you awake at 3am.
Losing your stuffin’
Daddy’s proverbial “stuffin’” was more than a poetic scatological reference. With an awareness that something real to fear could make him lose who he was inside, he expressed relief when discovering his fears thwarted. When we face fears, we dread losing something of ourselves – our nature, our spirit, and all the stuff that holds us together.
Our traits, our character, our personality, and more comprise our nature. When fears creep in and threaten our very makeup, sometimes we fear the threat more than the object of fear itself. While the notion of losing the basis of ourselves seems absurd, the urgency fear attracts skews our rational thinking.
Breakdowns often result in a loss of our spirit. Unbridled fear of the unknown, left wild, many times results in destruction. Our spirit – that invisible, intangible force that guides, directs and protects us, also connects all the pieces of ourselves. Not only does spirit offer the interconnectedness of who we are, spirit allows us to recognize ourselves in others, as well.
That invisible stuffin’ of life force inside of us, holds us all together. The miracle of fusing bodily systems and mind functions as well as our personality, the very essence that makes a person a person, faces risk of destruction through our fears.
The Beejeebers
No one really knows what beejeebers are, but we’ve come to understand they are important things not to lose! Perhaps beejeebers are that precious part of ourselves we can’t identify, but can feel in our heart and mind. The wonderful life-force that beckons us forward on days when fears paralyze our movement, beejeebers gather up the muster of our will, our stalwart drive to achieve and our resolve for a better life. Like the innate flight-or-fight mechanism, our true spirit provides the glue that holds us together.
When we can readjust our irrational and rational fears into conscious awareness of recognizing real or imminent dangers, we express our self-love by preserving that which makes us complete.
No need to eeek! When you realize your fears live inside of you, you empower yourself by recognizing your stuffin’ is still intact.
Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. . A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com.
By Marlene Buffa
Our friends provide us with the most amazing reflections of ourselves through their patient understanding and perspective. Often when things seem difficult in our lives, we pout, whine, get angry and ultimately wonder how life will ever be the same again. One quiet, sensible friend, will inevitably take a moment to remind you, that no matter how rough the waters may appear at the moment, someday soon, you’ll laugh about the situation in retrospect. The gentle reminder that everything in life is temporary no matter how dire the circumstances or insurmountable the odds, brings us back to the present moment.
Financial
These days, a small majority of Americans find themselves unemployed. While some financial situations may appear desperate, they are a manifestation of our choices and a culmination of our attitudes towards prosperity, and should be recognized as a necessary lesson. For the most part, more money can always be earned, and there is enough for everyone. Your personal finances and the economy of our country, as history demonstrates repeatedly, is impermanent. It won’t last forever and it will change. Hang in there – someday you’ll refer to the tough times as “the good old days!”
Situations
Whether family matter or work situations keep you up each night with worry and doubt, know that these, too, will eventually go out with the tide. Waves of fear and anger over personal injustice, or the rough waters of struggle and the unknown leave all of us longing for the shores of contentment.
Take a moment to step back and realize that all that worries you today, will be tomorrow’s history. The anxiety wanes, the cold sweat and panic subsides and whatever the outcome, you’ll emerge more resolute than you thought possible. Time drags change right along with it. Whatever you stress over today will dissipate with tomorrow’s sunrise – or at the very least, it will have changed enough for you to notice the illusion of the fear you held so closely.
Relationships
Louise Hay says that all relationships are temporary. People come in and out of your life exactly when they should, and they stay as long as they need to. She astutely tells us to love but understand that separation of any kind is inevitable.
In life, we attend births and funerals. We celebrate marriage and console one another through divorce. Friends and family move away, and new people come into our lives. A constant flow of love’s energy moves through us, and if we embrace the person and the gifts they offer us by their presence in our lives, we accept the impermanence of the relationship. We bless others, and release them when its time to move on. We honor them by freely letting go, and acknowledge them by recognizing the mutual contributions made in one another’s visit.
Love
Throughout our lives, we see many types and degrees of love. Some say love fades away or even dies, and others believe love is eternal. If love can be created and in some ethereal sense, become “matter,” they it cannot be destroyed. While our relationships are temporary, the capacity to give and receive love endures beyond our physical appearance on earth.
You may find yourself in or out of love, but love still endures in your heart. The object of your affection is temporary. The love lasts forever.
When we reflect on our day in our evening prayer or meditation, we thank our Creator for all the good in our life. Knowing everything exists only in the moment thereby making everything we experience temporary, we also give thanks for things which don’t last forever!
May you learn to separate your spirit from the situation, the relationship, the hardship and the love, and realize the only permanence you experience in life is who you are. And you are temporary, too.
Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. . A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.
www.wordsofmind.com.
By Marlene Buffa
In my youth, my brother Bob, 7 years my senior, endured the task of babysitting me when our parents went out for the evening. Given the instructions to make sure I ate my dinner, he once chased me upstairs and under the bed where I hid from the dreaded canned peas which were part of my meal. Just following “orders” Bob tried to force me to eat the loathsome vegetables. We ended these donnybrooks in a standoff, and often stomped to our respective corners of the house to brood our positions. Bob also humored me by watching scary movies with me. When I’d get frightened by the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” or other such black and white horror films, he’d attempt to inject reality (to the extent a 6 year old could grasp reality), by pointing out that the images I saw on our Magnavox console TV were just dots of light projected on a screen – they weren’t real, and of course, there was nothing to fear.
Now, I’m 50 years old. My brother’s direct but insightful and ultimately poignant lesson, still reminds me that life can indeed appear scary, but we must step back and recognize the source. By exposing the illusion, we vanquish the perception of fear
Interpretation
In motivational speeches, I’ve heard it said that “the strongest steel comes from the hottest flame.” Expanding on that, we know our strength derives from the intensity of our challenges and our creativity and capability to overcome them. The “dots on the screen” appearing as problems or mires of circumstance, remain open to interpretation, and ultimately, a reality check.
When we take a moment to step back, as adults, and see our situation for what it is, rather than how it appears separate from us, we see that in its granular form, the adversity lacks substance. In fact, what we see and experience, in full vision, effect and surround-sound, is merely a projection of our deepest fears, not reality. When we learn to interpret our experiences as a learning opportunity for greater growth, we resume our power in the present moment and turn off stark illusions.
Cover your eyes!
Ok, I admit it. When I’m watching a horror flick on my own DVD player, I’m tempted to hit fast-forward. (When VCRs first came out [I dating myself – I told you I’m 50!], I naively pressed the “pause” button when the action was unbearable. Realizing that didn’t work, I figured fast-forward was the better option.) Particularly lengthy and gruesome scenes with slow motion effects to dramatize the anguish, often receive my threat of “I’m zooming past this now,” to fellow viewers in my living room. And, as always, I’m met with detractions and contradictions, so I just cover my eyes. Unable to resist the adrenaline rush, I playfully peek through my fingers to see if its really that bad. Usually, it is, so I continue my own drama and suffer through my urge to hit the button on the remote.
In life, we cover our eyes and ignore our reality more often that we care to admit. Hoping, like ignoring a yellow-jacket wasp, our troubles will go away if we pay no attention. While sometimes this does work, however, I’m a proponent of giving energy to what I do want in my life, not to what I don’t want! But, like a toothache that never improves, when you ignore uncomfortable situations, most of life’s little bumps need a reality check. Peeking at them from time to time, trying to outlast the discomfort, doesn’t deny their truth.
The Thrill in the Chill
Oh, go ahead, scream! You rent the movie, watch it on TV, or drive yourself to the theatre to deliberately view a scary show. Sure, it’s a series of dots projected onto a screen, but hey, you paid good money to get scared out of your wits. So, letterrip and let out a blood-curdling eeek!
We take on life the same way. We deliberately put ourselves in situations in our own homes and relationships, or we seek fear outside of ourselves, which we fully know will give us a roller-coaster of emotions and anxiety. Don’t try to deny it – we all do it from time to time.
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